U23 Quest Feedback - Epic Black Abbot Raid

[Lifespawn]

The damage from the water has been greatly increased for the next Lamannia build. There may be other changes later as well, pending feedback from the next Lamannia round.

200-300 a tick would do the trick while still letting you hop in for an emergency 400 on jump in would make it hard to hop through aswell

[Ovrad]

You could always stop making monsters respawn infinitely. Have a set number of waves, possibly linked to a trigger like the boss hp (sorta like in lord of blades). Having mobs instantly respawn is just annoying and pointless to me.

That's why nobody ever bothers killing the battle ragers in Deathwyrm, it takes too long to kill them and they just pop right back. At least with a set number of waves, it doesn't feel counter productive to kill mobs. Currently, it's pretty much just a waste of time and resources.

[B0ltdrag0n]

This raid is very very frustrating for nearly every toon. SP drain is detrimental to melee and ranged toons just as much.

During the first parts where we do the puzzles I think it would be a good and fun mechanic to make it so that if we beat down the abbot he goes to his perch and doesn't respawn for perhaps 30 seconds to a minute to give us time to try and cross the tiles to the puzzle rooms.

The insta teleporting is also not very fun.

As others have said the beholder spawns are far too high the negative leves is annoying but I shouldn't have to be chugging sovereign healing pots (store) and using a store item to remove negative levels because of the beholder spam.

I think if the rest of the trash stopped respawning after the puzzles are done and only the quells and beholders spawned that would be interesting.

Inferno has safespots which I assume is intended however most of those spots are not actually there or at least they are not where the graphics say they are. This should be looked into.

YOu have already said lady vols initial circles are not working as intended that is good to know.

I think we should have the option after the deathknight beatdown to 'kill' i.e. incapacitate lady vol with damage so she stops her attack animations. Since the raid is completed when you defeat the abbot I think this wouldn't make the raid easier but give an alternate path

[XbaileyX]

Im actually really enjoying the new raid. There are a few things I would like to see adjust, but controlled chaos can actually me more fun in the end.

Things I would like to see adjusted:
- Beholders. I understand they add challenge, but you need to give us the abilty to rez party members while beholders are up, reduce the spawn rate, or give us a permanate item(immunity to neg levels) to wear intead of store pots. Any one of the three or possibly a combination of them based off difficulty?
- Water. While I would like to see people forced to do the tiles puzzle I believe upping the water damage isn't the solution. With everything else going on I have made a handful of trips to the botton of the water to save people who have died. You just made me not be able to rez party member who cant get back themselves. You took away your options. Walls, barriers, or reducing water damage after Vol has popped would all be options.
- Challeneg of puzzle rooms. Disappointed. I was just expecting more. I do however love the adrenaline. I would have love to see these rooms represent litany, since we didn't get an epic litany.
- Possible shrine. One of the reasons ive seen people get so frustrated is that once they have died once or twice, its a downward spiral. The ability to use a shrine would go far....
- Give a 10 second delay, or message on the screen to warn the last deathlord has dropped and blueferno is about to hit.
- Give us two goggles.

Things I love:
- Lady vols manifest zone. I love how it is, I approve of the instadeath. I think it makes players stay on there toes. I would love if this didn't change, or stay that way for at least EE.
- Deathlord Adrenaline. Love you can see it, call it, and communicate as a party to overcome it.
- Energy Burst on EE. Nicely done :P
- Lady vol rocks, I wish we were interacting with her more.
- I love the controlled chaos and teamwork needed to completed. Well done sir.
- I like how the deathknights have different colors/graphics to tell them apart.
- Safe spots from inferno on platform.

**I would prefer to see an augment from the store over the Greater Resto Pots (neg lvl removals). It just seems a like a bad solution.

Thank you for all your time and work and for giving us another Raid!!

[XbaileyX]

+1

You think running an off destiny in whats is supposed to be the hardest raid in the game is reasonable?

A suggestion:

Give players a reason to hit Vol: optional chest/xp, quest requirement, anything.

I just see it as a pugger death trap. I'd rather see it be legitimately hard, than have 6 people cheese out a victory while 6 puggers rack up 100 deaths.

How about jumping in the water gives back spell points? If nothing else it'll be damned entertaining to watch.

[Sloene]

Im actually really enjoying the new raid. There are a few things I would like to see adjust, but controlled chaos can actually me more fun in the end.

Things I would like to see adjusted:
- Beholders. I understand they add challenge, but you need to give us the abilty to rez party members while beholders are up, reduce the spawn rate, or give us a permanate item(immunity to neg levels) to wear intead of store pots. Any one of the three or possibly a combination of them based off difficulty?
- Water. While I would like to see people forced to do the tiles puzzle I believe upping the water damage isn't the solution. With everything else going on I have made a handful of trips to the botton of the water to save people who have died. You just made me not be able to rez party member who cant get back themselves. You took away your options. Walls, barriers, or reducing water damage after Vol has popped would all be options.
- Challeneg of puzzle rooms. Disappointed. I was just expecting more. I do however love the adrenaline. I would have love to see these rooms represent litany, since we didn't get an epic litany.
- Possible shrine. One of the reasons ive seen people get so frustrated is that once they have died once or twice, its a downward spiral. The ability to use a shrine would go far....
- Give a 10 second delay, or message on the screen to warn the last deathlord has dropped and blueferno is about to hit.
- Give us two goggles.

Things I love:
- Lady vols manifest zone. I love how it is, I approve of the instadeath. I think it makes players stay on there toes. I would love if this didn't change, or stay that way for at least EE.
- Deathlord Adrenaline. Love you can see it, call it, and communicate as a party to overcome it.
- Energy Burst on EE. Nicely done :P
- Lady vol rocks, I wish we were interacting with her more.
- I love the controlled chaos and teamwork needed to completed. Well done sir.
- I like how the deathknights have different colors/graphics to tell them apart.
- Safe spots from inferno on platform.

**I would prefer to see an augment from the store over the Greater Resto Pots (neg lvl removals). It just seems a like a bad solution.

Thank you for all your time and work and for giving us another Raid!!

OK, your crazy.

[droid327]

You could always stop making monsters respawn infinitely. Have a set number of waves, possibly linked to a trigger like the boss hp (sorta like in lord of blades). Having mobs instantly respawn is just annoying and pointless to me.

That's why nobody ever bothers killing the battle ragers in Deathwyrm, it takes too long to kill them and they just pop right back. At least with a set number of waves, it doesn't feel counter productive to kill mobs. Currently, it's pretty much just a waste of time and resources.

Maybe that's the point though? Its designed to encourage you to mitigate or CC the mobs, rather than just kill them? Ie, its a problem for which "more deeps" is not a universal solution?

[Ovrad]

Maybe that's the point though? Its designed to encourage you to mitigate or CC the mobs, rather than just kill them? Ie, its a problem for which "more deeps" is not a universal solution?

You can't CC them, so that leaves kiting in circles or exploiting perches, both of which are pretty lame, and wouldn't happen if the AI wasn't dumb as bricks.

[Tesrali]

Raid was a lot of fun---thanks for working so hard on it.

I don't think that all the whiners in here are overstating the effects of respawning beholders; it's really tough. The players will develop strategies for combating the difficult mechanic. Do we all remember how challenging the original Abbot was at level? I'm cool with em.

My friends and I are all planning for energy drain and petrification immunity. I don't know if this is the intention of developrs, but encasement as it stands is almost an instakill, and fleshies spend more time running than fighting.
Plan is...
divine crusader, warforged or 5 pally levels.
shadow dancer, elemental druid or earth savant.

As other people mentioned, the encasement is pretty frustrating if we don't have those boulders, and the inferno until we have the ice wand but I think we'll see that adjusted.

I'm really sympathetic with other people's comments about spell point drain. We need a mechanic to return sp and neg levels. Make the casting of neg levels on a character create an sp regeneration buff. That's a creative solution to one of the problems.

[Coldin]

The damage from the water has been greatly increased for the next Lamannia build. There may be other changes later as well, pending feedback from the next Lamannia round.

Steel...

Look. I don't necessarily care that the water instantly kills you. What really bothers me here is that if you die in the water, your soulstone is essentially lost. It becomes very difficult to be raised due to the timer and the long swim upwards. If the water is going to be super deadly, then please make soulstones teleport to the middle of the arena.

It would be nice if the invisible platforms were a bit easier to pick out for players not blessed with the magic goggles. I'm pretty good at platforming, but hard to jump to something I can't see.

[Silverleafeon]

Steel...

Look. I don't necessarily care that the water instantly kills you. What really bothers me here is that if you die in the water, your soulstone is essentially lost

Thanks for bringing this up.

I brought this up in PC forums and Steel answered there.

The water is much shallower in the Epic Abbot (half as deep), so this point is already being considered.
I did see a lot of Rezzing of swimmers, but if you are tile hopper be very careful not to die...

[B0ltdrag0n]

I would like to see the blue tiles visible to everyone, after the goggles are retrieved. There would still be a reason for the beta phase goggle guy for all the other tiles but it would be a bit helpful for the others.

[Steelstar]

Thanks for the feedback over this past weekend, everyone!

Make sure you check the Abbot's Energy Burst - fire as well. It seems it has no cooldown (seen it spam in less than 6 seconds) and infinite DC (can't remember if I even got a save, but even on a dex build with Imp evasion and ~100 MRR on EN I took 800 damage per hit). Ranged/casters aren't affected by it much, but it's a PITA to melee with the Abbot spamming it.

We'll take a look at this, though it's unlikely to be fixed in the next Lamannia build.

First off I'd like to say I absolutely love how challenging this raid is. Got a chance to play around with a full group on EE (previously we've only been shortmanning/soloing). I'd like to see the challenge kept about the same as it is now, but I think we need the proper tools to actually deal with the challenges properly (instead of finding workarounds/safe spots/cheese). Its definitely completable as is though.

The first obvious problem is the abbot using encase/inferno before its even possible to get ice wands and boulders. IMO the first room should give goggles, boulders and wands. Just let us deal with the challenge the proper way from the start.

The Abbot using Encase/Inferno before you have all the items is a tough one. If you're very fast, you can be back with the items before he starts using the special attacks. We'll keep an eye on the timing of things during the next Lamannia round.

The Beholders are certainly challenging; for the next Lamannia round, Beholders and Quells spawn less frequently.

Two more quick notes:

• I've seen a few players attribute CON damage to the Beholders or Quells; almost all of it in the Raid is coming from the Melee Vampires.
• We dug into the Negative Level spam, and discovered that the Quells were dishing out the vast majority of those; they shouldn't be dishing out any. In the next Lamannia build, there should be far fewer Negative Levels flying around.

[Monkey_Archer]

The Abbot using Encase/Inferno before you have all the items is a tough one. If you're very fast, you can be back with the items before he starts using the special attacks. We'll keep an eye on the timing of things during the next Lamannia round.

If you swim to the ddoors I can see this being possible, but if you do each tile puzzle legit, one at a time I'm not so sure. EN maybe, highly unlikely on higher difficulties.

The Beholders are certainly challenging; for the next Lamannia round, Beholders and Quells spawn less frequently.

Two more quick notes:

• I've seen a few players attribute CON damage to the Beholders or Quells; almost all of it in the Raid is coming from the Melee Vampires.
• We dug into the Negative Level spam, and discovered that the Quells were dishing out the vast majority of those; they shouldn't be dishing out any. In the next Lamannia build, there should be far fewer Negative Levels flying around.

I would say most of the CON damage is definitely from the beholders, but the vampires can add quite a bit more if you are tanking them. Beholder rays hit about 10 CON damage on EN, and can be over 20 CON damage on EE.

Fewer negative levels is a good thing I think, but if you are nerfing the beholders that much, please look into buffing amount of damage flesh sear does. Its currently ticking for only about 5 damage (I'd guess this is a bug), whereas I think it should be at least 30 or more.

Also, I have a video of our 3-man completion uploading atm. I'll post it here with more feedback in about an hour or so when its finished.

[Scrabbler]

Please change Deathblock items which include a percentage reduction to negative damage so that they have the same percent chance to block incoming negative levels.

[Monkey_Archer]

Really fun raid


Strategy:
First rooms are straightforward, I do ice wand room first so I can stay alive while the boulder room gets completed. DPS on abbot is somewhat slow because of cloud spam. Deathknights are basically New Invasion 2.0. Blueferno stage is just a mess, swim or die basically, then dps abbot in the couple seconds we had before the next one.

Thoughts:
Beholders are rough, but we've found ways to deal with them now.
I still don't know how to deal with the blueferno properly. The AOE effect seems to extend past the platform and onto the ice islands. Not only that, but you have a very short window to even get the island down in time. Is swimming the intended way to survive this?
I'm a bit concerned with raising the water damage for many reasons. I do want to see the tile puzzle become mandatory somehow though. I'd rather see walls around the puzzle and instead of water underneath the tiles, have the black chasm like in the heroic abbot tile puzzle that sends you back to the main platform dead if you fall.

[moo_cow]

Really fun raid


Strategy:
First rooms are straightforward, I do ice wand room first so I can stay alive while the boulder room gets completed. DPS on abbot is somewhat slow because of cloud spam. Deathknights are basically New Invasion 2.0. Blueferno stage is just a mess, swim or die basically, then dps abbot in the couple seconds we had before the next one.

Thoughts:
Beholders are rough, but we've found ways to deal with them now.
I still don't know how to deal with the blueferno properly. The AOE effect seems to extend past the platform and onto the ice islands. Not only that, but you have a very short window to even get the island down in time. Is swimming the intended way to survive this?
I'm a bit concerned with raising the water damage for many reasons. I do want to see the tile puzzle become mandatory somehow though. I'd rather see walls around the puzzle and instead of water underneath the tiles, have the black chasm like in the heroic abbot tile puzzle that sends you back to the main platform dead if you fall.

Private

[Monkey_Archer]

oops... should be good now.

[Nayus]

- Beholders. I understand they add challenge, but you need to give us the abilty to rez party members while beholders are up,

Please, no more trivialization of character death.

[XbaileyX]

Really fun raid


Strategy:
First rooms are straightforward, I do ice wand room first so I can stay alive while the boulder room gets completed. DPS on abbot is somewhat slow because of cloud spam. Deathknights are basically New Invasion 2.0. Blueferno stage is just a mess, swim or die basically, then dps abbot in the couple seconds we had before the next one.

Thoughts:
Beholders are rough, but we've found ways to deal with them now.
I still don't know how to deal with the blueferno properly. The AOE effect seems to extend past the platform and onto the ice islands. Not only that, but you have a very short window to even get the island down in time. Is swimming the intended way to survive this?
I'm a bit concerned with raising the water damage for many reasons. I do want to see the tile puzzle become mandatory somehow though. I'd rather see walls around the puzzle and instead of water underneath the tiles, have the black chasm like in the heroic abbot tile puzzle that sends you back to the main platform dead if you fall.

Few things to note.
-We all were running KotC for immunity to neg levels as well as Divine Crusader for enchasement. While it works for right now, im not convinced this is a viable live solution. I was still taking 10- 17 con damage from the vamps and death knights, I didn't actually notice ANY con damage from the beholders.
-Lady Vol chased me off the island and into the water, not sure if it was just timing, but her poison attack worked while she fell off.and was underwater... wai? Is she suppose to jump off?
-Thy and I did 3 runs and all of them wouldnt have been possible without rez clickies (read not scrolls/spells). Back to the shroud for all of us.
-Most heals were pot heals and a rare cacoon or crusader circle. Innerccesion ward was a good idea, but the amount of disjunctions made it not a real solution.
-While I should probably hide my head in shame for the death spiral, it proves a very valid statement that has always been true of abbot, even more so now. Once you have that first death, no matter how random or justified, its hard to recover because you aren't really given the time/space/lack of special attacks to fully recover.

We did overcome all the current issues in the raid but im not convinced any of them should be a forced solution on live. When players are forced into destinies, enchancements or races it has a frustration factor that shouldn't be overlooked.

Again a great job on the raid. So much fun. Thank you for all the continued feedback.